


A Juxtaposition of Truths

by 11oyd



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Flashbacks, M/M, Post CA:WS, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 20:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6255094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/11oyd/pseuds/11oyd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How the world sunsets on the Winter Soldier and sunrises on Bucky Barnes: a character study.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Juxtaposition of Truths

Nothing feels real when he's on Zola's table, lying under the glaring white light, strapped down with the mouth guard in his mouth to keep him from screaming or biting through his tongue. That's the worst of it – it makes him question everything, every single part of his life, and it all falls apart like sand through his fingers as Zola works over him. Did Steve ever really save him? Did he ever actually look like that, the beacon of health and strength, Bucky's shining golden hero? Was Bucky ever off the table at all, or was he born on it, born bleeding and gasping for air as he arches his back and tries not to weep?

There's one moment where he's whole and almost able to think clearly; the mouth guard hasn't yet been introduced and he hears himself saying, "James Buchanan Barnes, Sergeant, 10304538, James Buchanan Barnes, Sergeant," over and over again like a prayer and Zola over him humming something, an unfamiliar song that sounds too pleasant for this cold metal room.

There's another moment where he wakes up with hazy eyes and his head lolls to the side and he catches a glimpse of the metal table where his left arm should be. His eyes are half-lidded, nearly closed, and he just stares for the longest moment, knowing something is wrong but unable to pinpoint just what. There is pain everywhere, in his ribs, in his head, in his feet, in his arms – and he knows, abruptly. The knowledge sends a shooting panic through him, enough to momentarily push aside the thick fog in his head, and he's shouting, "Where's my arm? Where's my _fucking arm_ , you took my arm, _you sick cunt_ –" and he's thrashing against the straps and there's absolutely nothing he can do to stop a blank-faced man from coming up and injecting something silently into the side of his neck. Everything goes dark.

He tries not to think about Steve here in the first capture, not ever. Not even when he's alone in the tiny cell they've given him, smelling of piss and sweat and fear; Steve is too precious to be marred here. He catches himself whenever it happens accidentally; whenever he's laying on his side, eyes closed, and starts to feel a small teenager pressed in front of him; whenever he's eating the brown gruel they give him and he pauses to imagine a blond boy eating oatmeal across the table from him –

 _No_ , he thinks desperately whenever this happens, and buries the image deep inside him. He buries in between his ribs, in the spaces where canaries go to die, too deep to ever be retrieved. He stares at the ground instead, he counts the cracks in the dark gray walls. Bringing Steve in here is wrong, it's just fucking wrong – it's like dragging a favorite stuffed animal through the mud and the dirt; Steve is the one thing they haven't taken from him yet, and if they do, he'll die. He knows he will, he'll die. And gladly, too.

In this way, Bucky becomes the Winter Soldier long before he falls from the train.

–

They find him in one of the safe houses, sitting in the corner with an empty look in his eyes. He can see them out of his peripheral, approaching slowly like he's an animal – it's the winged man and the redhead girl and the man from the bridge. He hasn't moved in four days except to force himself to get up and drink water; his hunger is ignored. His injuries are ignored. He sits cross-legged with his hands on his knees, staring straight ahead.

The man from the bridge is the one to come closest, moving forward hesitantly like he's afraid. "Bucky?" he asks in a low voice, crouching a little. "It's me. It's Steve. We've – we've been looking everywhere for you. Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

"Steve," says the redhead quietly.

The Soldier can see him swallow. No one moves, the Soldier does not move at all, he has been taught stillness in a thousand forms. He's been taught to wait – for instructions, for his target, for the next time he's to be awakened. It is no problem now to wait out these three; the only one who might be able to challenge his stillness is the redhead, and he knows she's won't.

"Nat, can you wait here with him?" asks the man from the bridge – _Steve_ , looking crestfallen. "We'll be right back."

The redhead gives a quick, sharp nod and moves to where she's more in his line of vision, carefully sitting down across from him in the same position he's in. He recognizes it for what it is – a sign of compliancy – but doesn't look away from the half-broken lamp across the room he's fixed his gaze on. The two men leave, their footsteps loud and clumsy as they exit the room and then pause just outside of it, closing the door behind them, but not realizing that the Soldier can still clearly hear everything they say.

The redhead realizes; he can see it, but she does nothing, and instead they both just sit there listening.

"Steve, you have to be careful around him –"

"I'm not _afraid of him_ ," Steve cuts in sharply.

" _For_ him, you idiot," says the winged man. He looks less dangerous without his metal wings, but the Soldier imagines that even without them, he looks intimidating when he's using that voice. "He's traumatized; he's in a state of shock." The Soldier chooses to disagree. "You can't rush this. You can't force him to do anything that might upset him."

"So – what?" asks Steve in a tight voice. "What do we do? He looks unresponsive. We don't even know how long he's been waiting here for _them_."

There's a little pause, and the Soldier cuts his eyes quickly to the redhead, the Black Widow, and then away again when he sees she's thoughtfully watching him. Back to the lamp. He'd gone in a frenzy when he'd first gotten here, tearing into anything and everything he could get his hands on. Then he'd sat down and waited. He hadn't known what he was waiting for when he sat down, but now he thinks he might understand.

"We secure the building," said the winged man finally. "And we let him know who we are and that we're here for him; bring him food and supplies, leave it here for him. And when he's ready to go with us, if ever, we bring him back. But it has to be his choice. He deserves to make his own decisions."

Steve sounds deeply unhappy (is that what unhappiness sounds like?) but he agrees and then they come back in the room, walking even slower and looking even more cautious. "Bucky," says Steve in a low voice, coming around to where the redhead is sitting. "Hey there, hey. I'm Steve Rogers. This is Natasha Romanoff," the redhead, "and Sam Wilson," the winged man. "We're not part of Hydra, we're just trying to help you. Please," his voice sounds raw, like he's frightened, and when the Soldier flicks his eyes towards him, he sees that his hands are splayed out, pleading. "We can take you someplace safe. We can take care of you. I promise we won't hurt you, I just – we just want to help you."

The Soldier looks back to the lamp, his face unmoving. He's heard that before. There's a lot of things he's heard before.

"Bucky, please," says Steve again in that same broken voice after they've spent five more minutes in silence and he thinks, _My name is the Winter Soldier_ , but he does not move, and after another ten minutes, they leave, and finally, finally, he moves, his hands just barely curling into his knees.

And he is relieved that he did not go with him, but there's just a hint of something sour on the back of his tongue and as he slides his fingers back out, he realizes it's disappointment.

–

He does not remember the breaking process. There is no single moment in his mind when he remembers giving in to the pain and the sweat and the terror. There is only so much fighting he can do alone – alone, starving, laying flat on a metal board for hours with the light in his eyes and his head twisting back and forth, no one around to show him compassion or humanity. Who could ask him to survive under these circumstances? Who, after years of loneliness and torment, could expect Bucky Barnes to survive the mutilation?

It happens like this: he's not following orders, until suddenly he is. They tell him to move to one way and he does and no pain follows. They tell him to drink a questionable liquid and he does and though it makes him burn and ache, they pet his hair afterward and speak soothingly and he almost likes it. Most of the scientists treat him like he's an object or a weapon, but occasionally in the years one of them will almost look at him like he's a person, and he whimpers for these people, leaning towards them like they're all he's ever wanted.

His memories are gone, they are wiped – he can feel a sorrow he doesn't understand sometimes and he is more gentle with blond-haired young men than others and sometimes a certain word will have him twisting violently and destroying as many things as he can in a blind rage – but eventually these fits abandon him too. And then he is just the Soldier, the Asset, he does what they tell him and is rewarded for it.

Those brief moments after he completes a mission, when someone takes him aside and gently cleans his naked body, they are the purest moments of peace the Soldier knows. It is the moment he lives for, if he lives for anything. One time, it is one of the blond-haired young men and for the first time in as long as he can remember, the Soldier feels almost human. The man is focused and thorough as he wipes down the blood, cleans under his arms and in between his thighs, preparing him for the cyro tank.

The Soldier has the strange urge to reach out and touch the golden hair as the man bends down to rub a cloth down the his calves. He's never had the urge to touch one of them before. That hair though… it looks soft.

"We just want to help you," says the young man, looking up as he finishes.

The Soldier blinks, staring at him blankly.

And later, when they're testing his healing capabilities under controlled circumstances, and he's throwing his head back in a scream, he sees the blond haired man again looking at him with sympathy and he hears it again, this time in his head, again and again, pulsing like a second heartbeat until he's just as insane from it as he is from the burning in his veins: _We just want to help you_.

–

They come back to the safe house every day at the same time, doing and bringing different things with them each time. Some days it's all three of them, some days it's Steve and Wilson, some days it's Steve and Romanoff, some days it's Steve and a fourth man who carries a bow and arrows and looks highly observant – and some days it is Steve alone, coming faithfully and doggedly, like he's trying to prove something to himself and to the Soldier.

Often it's just food and water; they lay it down in front of him like an offering before a god (or like food before a pet they've leashed), and then step away, smiling, always smiling. The Soldier never smiles. He waits until they leave to eat it, and then chews it slowly and methodically, refusing the sweet things, pushing them aside to rot, and only eating what he needs to sustain his body with. On the second day they also bring him a thin blanket and pillow, which the Soldier uses secretly until one day he wakes up curled up in a ball under the blanket to find Steve at the entrance watching him with soft eyes and he shoves it all away, snarling.

After that, he sleeps with nothing, determined not to be caught again. It feels more like a punishment to them than to him; they need to be reminded that he's the Winter Soldier, he doesn't need them and their gifts, he can leave whenever he wants.

And then one day, no one comes.

He gets up two hours after the usual time and walks slowly to the front window, peering outside to see if someone is stationed outside like they sometimes are, but the street is quiet and empty. The Soldier frowns, looking around, then slowly moves through the rest of the house, through all the rooms, even going downstairs to the room with the destroyed chair. It looks even more destroyed than his encounter with it – like someone else came along behind him and took a baseball bat to it, then a flamethrower. His steps have no sound to them, as ghostlike as he is, and then he's back in his usual room and his frown deepens.

This isn't right.

He paces, feeling restless for the first time since the fight in the sky, because he didn't want them coming every day until suddenly they stopped, and he doesn't even know why it bothers him so much, only that it does. Maybe he got used to the routine. The Winter Soldier appreciates routine. And now – now he realizes that he has no idea how to find them again. What if they've left him forever? What if they've given up on him?

He's seconds away from leaving the safe house when suddenly the front entrance opens and he shifts into an attack stance just as Steve walks in wearing a sheepish expression and saying, "Sorry I'm late, there was some sort of invasion on the west coast and I had to talk my way out of it—"

And then he notices the expression on the Soldier's face and stops, immediately contrite. "Bucky?" he asks. "You okay?"

"You didn't show up," says the Soldier. It's the first thing he's said to Steve where they're not fighting.

And Steve – before he can catch himself, a look of utter _delight_ crosses over the man's face, like he can't believe that the Soldier is speaking to him, and then instantly the look goes away and he looks regretful again, brows drawn low. "I'm sorry, Bucky, I should have shown up. That's my fault. Are you okay? Did anything happen?"

He just stands there, frowning.

"Right," says Steve, the excited smile leaving his lips further, though his eyes still look earnest. The Soldier doesn't know what to do with how well he can read this man – it feels innate, like breathing. Each shift of his face produces new expressions, and the Soldier recognizes and understand all of them. "I'm still sorry. I guess I didn't think you'd notice. But – I – you know… you could… come back with me… and then you'd always be able to keep an eye on me and make sure things are going okay."

The Soldier looks at him distrustfully, his lips still curled down.

"And you can come back whenever you want," adds Steve.

He knows that this man is strong enough to take care of himself – strong enough to fight the Soldier and survive, which says quite a lot – but he also knows that Steve is foolish, careless with his own safety, and too accepting of potential threats to be left alone on his own any longer. He doesn't know why he has such a deep instinct to protect this dumb, golden-haired idiot, only that for the first time in decades he feels more than simply awake, he feels aware.

And he knows he can leave if he wants. The safe house suddenly feels dirty, disgusting; it makes his skin crawl. He's done waiting.

At long last, he nods, causing another too-bright smile spreads across Steve's face that makes the Soldier squint in response. He doesn't like it when people smile at him. It either means he did something right or something very, very wrong.

–

Sometimes they – the omnipresent scientists and handlers who perform tests on him and direct his missions – smile at him when he successfully assassinates a target. Sometimes they smile when he's screaming because of a new torture method they're developing for other purposes.

One time they pull him out of cyro to demonstrate his abilities in front of a group of men and when he flips his sparring partner into the ground they all start applauding him. They're still clapping even as he straddles his partner's chest, even as he puts his hands around his partner's throat, even as he squeezes and squeezes with their fingers scrabbling for purchase and no one stops him. It's a senseless kill, emotionless, and he feels nothing as he climbs off the dead body and looks at the crowd again.

Some of them are still smiling. His eyes skate over them; a part of him thinks of killing them too, digging his fingers into their fat flesh and tearing them apart, but he just stands there, silently waiting for orders. He does not make decisions. He does not choose when to act. His body is not his own, nor his thoughts, nor his emotions. He obeys.

He is a good soldier.

–

The Soldier learns that it is extraordinarily easy to make Steve Rogers both happy and sad.

Things that make Steve happy:

Whenever the Soldier tries a new food.

Whenever he responds to 'Bucky' as though it's his real name.

Whenever he remembers little things about the past.

Whenever he falls asleep on the couch – the first time he does this, it's accidental and he wakes up with a blanket around him and a pillow under his head and he's amazed simply that Steve was able to do this without him waking up. The second time, he wakes up and catches Steve in the act, immediately looking awkward as he clutches the blanket to his chest and spouts something about chilly temperatures. He thinks it all means something, but he's not sure what.

Things that make Steve sad:

Whenever the Soldier wakes up from a nightmare in a panic and has to run to the toilet to throw up (somehow the Soldier can always tell that Steve knows, even if he doesn't say anything). His stomach didn't use to react so negatively to mental distress, but everything's weakening in him now.

Whenever nothing will rouse the Soldier from an unmoving statue-like state of mind.

Whenever he lies about remembering little things from the past to make Steve happy.

Whenever he leaves for days without notice. This one is harder to pinpoint, and he can't explain even to himself why it's necessary, just that it is and that if he didn't, he would feel suffocated in the tiny apartment Steve rents out for them both. He wanders the city, he sleeps on park benches, he eats out of the trash, and when he returns he sees such an odd mixture of emotion in Steve's face that he has to turn his face away from it. A sadness that he left, perhaps, but a happiness that he eventually came back. It makes him feel small, that someone could feel that _much_ for him. He does not think he could ever summon up the same amount of emotion within himself.

He alternates between staying awake for days and then sleeping for stretches of twelve hours and more. Some days he seems like he might almost be fine, on his way to real recovery, and then other days he's hunched up under the shower with his hands over his ears, screaming like a child. Some days it's real conversation, other days it's cowering away from Steve every time he opens his mouth. He may be unwell, but even he can recognize what a nightmare it must be to live in the same apartment as him.

And yet… Steve never wavers. He never loses his patience, he never seems upset with the Soldier – always gentle, always soft. There's sadness there, though, and that makes the Soldier prickle with discontent. He watches with dark eyes as Steve reaches out to touch his shoulder or hand and then immediately withdraws, and it bothers the Soldier.

It bothers… Bucky?

He looks in the mirror one day and leans forward, pushing at the skin of his face, touching the long black hair that hangs down past his chin. He squint his eyes, straightens up, attempts to smile. Cocks his head a little and tries his best _I'm Bucky Barnes_ look. His eyes remain flat and too dark.

He smiles a little harder. Sweeps his hair back, and straightens his shoulders, imagining the blue coat and the clean shaven cheeks. Maybe he should shave. Except the idea of bringing a razor that close to his face makes his hands shake at his sides, even the metal one. So maybe not.

Still, the smile.

If he can contort his face just right… he's not Bucky any more, he can't be, Bucky didn't understand what it was to relay any information you could just to make it stop, Bucky didn't give up the fight, Bucky didn't kill people with his bare hands (or did he?), but this smile might be as close as he can get.

He waits until Steve gets home that night from a meeting with Stark and Banner in the Avengers Tower, waits until Steve has crossed the room and is smiling and saying, "Hey, Buck, good day today?" to unleash the smile, slow and charming, not Winter Soldier at all.

Steve comes up short, his eyes widening, his breath quickening. Bucky can hear the way his heart stutters in his chest. "Bucky?" he asks weakly. " _Really_ good day, I guess."

He realizes, then, how little he actually smiles. A twitch of his lips is the most sign of humor or happiness that Steve ever gets and now the smile actually softens, his eyes growing just a shade warmer. Steve nearly beams in response, looking for all the world like the Soldier has just given him the best gift possible.

"It was nice," he says, slowly, each word carefully measured. It might be worth it, pretending, to see that look on Steve's face – the look of slow awe and careful wonder, like Steve is worshipping, like he's holding something incredibly breakable in his super soldier hands. He created that look. He brought it to life. He doesn't remember a time when he created something so beautiful instead of destructive and he looks down at his hands, a curious little smile now playing on his lips. Yes, he can pretend, for that.

–

One man stands over Bucky, loosely holding a gun in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He's been working on Bucky for the past three days straight – it feels like it's only ever been the two of them in the world, born together out of blood and sweat and destined to die together in the same manner. It is sometime after the second capture and sometime before he has a second arm, healed but just barely. They like to keep him on the verge of sickness, holding frailty over his head like a weapon.

"Please," gasps Bucky, on the ground, curling into himself. There's blood on his forehead, leaking back into his hair, and blood on his shirt, his right arm bent weakly to protect himself. "Please, I'll do – I'll do anything –"

He thinks of Dum Dum around the fire, proudly saying that he would die before he gave any information to the Krauts; thinks of Morita quietly agreeing, nothing could ever break him. If the other Howlies knew, if they knew, they'd knew of his weakness, they'd despise him. He understands, more than anyone, and sobs into the ground, curling tighter.

The man spits on him.

"Who are you?" he asks, his voice low and rough with an unfamiliar accent.

"James Barnes," says Bucky.

The man kicks him hard in the sternum, then the stomach, making Bucky retch and gag – he shoots into the floor near Bucky's head, sending concrete shooting up into the air – he takes a long drag of his cigarette and then says, "Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm James – _James_ ," he pleads, rolling over and breathing hard as he looks up through a swollen black eye at the man. He's laying in his own vomit, he knows it, but he can't move. It's been three days of this. There's phantom pain in his arm, and there's been rumors about the base that Captain America is dead, but he still can't fathom a world where he's alive, the worthless piece of shit that he is and Steve is dead. Steve isn't dead. Steve can't be dead, and he can't be trapped with Zola, he can't be, he just can't.

" _Who_ ," says the man in a pointed voice, and points the gun directly in his face. "Are. You."

Bucky looks up at him, his lips cracked and bleeding and barely open. "Kill me," he whispers. "Just kill me. Please."

The man curses and then tosses the gun aside, dropping down onto Bucky and putting his fingers around his neck. He's choking him, Bucky's arching his back and clawing with his one useless hand, he could die if he wanted. He could just let himself die, his entire world is bleeding in black on his vision, the colors all running into each other, and the man is hissing, "Who are you?" and Bucky, god damn it, fucking hell, he wheezes through blue lips, "Winter – Soldier–"

And the man gets off him.

He chokes, rolling over, gasping for air, and above him, the man says quietly, "Good. Let Barnes rot in the ice where he fell. You have new work and a new master… Soldier."

It is a long time before he picks himself up off the floor.

–

He is able to uphold the Bucky façade for 79 hours before he cracks. It's more of a shattering than a fracture – and Steve, poor Steve, never sees it coming. He's sitting on the couch when the Soldier comes in, when Bucky comes in, when the Soldier comes in, and he calls, "Hey, Buck, I taped _Finding Nemo_ for us," and the Soldier's metal arm gives one single warning whirring noise before he pulls his arm back and slams it straight into a round glass table, the glass spider webbing out for a second before with a crystal crack it splinters to the ground.

"Bucky!" says Steve, raising to his feet with wide-eyed concern, and he can't do this, he can't.

" _I'm – not – Bucky,_ " he screams, and with a roar, he drags a floor lamp up and twists out, sending it flying across the room. Feels like he's overreacting and underreacting all at once – and because he feels like he's overreacting, the pressure builds even more, the fear and anxiety all clouding his mind that this might be the straw that pushes Steve away from him at last, and with it comes an odd relief because then at least he won't have to pretend any more.

He can't pretend.

Fingers round his neck, cigarette burns in his skin, bleeding lip, bloodied eye.

Who are you?

Who are you?

He doesn't know, but he know who he's not.

"I'm not him!" he shouts, and looks wildly for more things to destroy. Steve is standing feet away with his hands raised, looking fearful. "I can't _be him_ , I can't, you don't know who's in my head any more, I want you to be fucking happy, but I'm –" he's sobbing now, backing away, lifting his hands to curl around his own throat. If he could suffocate himself, he would. His back hits the wall, and he tilts his head back and shakes. "I'm not him," he whispers.

"I know," cuts in Steve, sounding out of breath. "I know you're not, it's okay. It's fine –"

"It's not okay," snarls the Soldier, ready to rise again, but Steve's voice breaks in again.

" _Hey_ ," he says. "You can be anyone you want to be, are you listening? Do you hear me? I won't tell you who to be, and I will love and accept you no matter what you choose to do. Look at me – whatever you want me to call you, whatever you want to act like. I'm here."

The Soldier blinks wet eyes, staring. "What if I hurt people?"

Steve inches closer, his expression firm. "I will protect them. And I will protect you."

Bucky whimpers. "Too many people in my head."

"There's just one," says Steve, his voice low. "Your actions don't correspond to one or the other. It was Bucky that was forced to hurt others, it was the Soldier who sat up with me when I was sick. I love them both."

His knees feel weak. Suddenly, the glass breaking feels overdramatic. "You love? Both?" he asks.

Steve nods, and he's finally close enough to touch Bucky, but he doesn't, his hands pressed tightly to his sides. "I didn't bring you here to relieve the past," he says. "I asked you to come here to for the future. For whatever future you might want. You don't have to be either one of them," he says, sounding heartbroken and Bucky reaches up, his metal hand shaking as he touches Steve's face, watching as the other man closes his eyes and leans into it, like the touch of metal is just as sweet to him as the touch of skin.

He is both the Soldier and Barnes and something more, something greater.

He is a choice between the two and everything in between, and in that way, he is freedom. A freedom that Captain America has always fought for, and he moves forward into a hug, his nose turned towards Steve's neck, breathing in a scent that is both new and old in ways only they two will ever understand.


End file.
